Competition Preparation

The New World of Regionals

In 2013, ~110,000 people signed up for the Open — 4,692 people advanced onto Regionals across all teams and individual competitions. 95.8% (Percentile to advance).

Fast forward to 2018, I’m assuming ~500,000 competing in the Open and 1,600 will move onto Super-Regionals (assuming the South America region is normal sized, and a pure addition, Europe splits and California / West becomes one region, moving total Regions to 8). That means, even to be on a team, you must be in the 99.78% percentile to advance this year.

Stock for Granite Games & Wodapalooza Up.

Stock for CF Games — Down again.

Positive from announcement, they finally did something about the West regional, though they failed to recognize how insanely weak (and now weaker) the South Region is.

I’m glad the sport is evolving, however I find it unfortunate that it continues to get less and less attainable, and thus gets further and further away from Affiliate support. Most athletes (even team) who are successful in this world will be required to train individually (most of the time) and separately from the group atmosphere, which negatively impacts the larger community. You will continue to have young athletes pursuing careers in a sport that cannot support them financially for the demands it requires, and will push them into bad life decisions; putting off or quitting jobs, taking steroids, obsessing over social media, and losing the support of quality in-person coaches.

My expectation is that more super-teams will be created. Regionals will continue to be represented less and less by people who are REAL, actual parts of an affiliate — and the affiliate atmosphere will continue to deteriorate. Over the past few years, there has been less and less excitement and cheering at the Regionals. Affiliate communities don’t travel to support teams – generally because those teams all train individually and seclude themselves from the community. The individuals are looked at more through the lens of fandom, and even then it is only a few top competitors who have a following.

The sport of CrossFit just took another step closer to elitism, seclusion and separation from their affiliate base of support. Sure, it will be great for documentary sales and cool workout montages that they can sell on iTunes. But who at HQ is thinking about how this will effect excitement around the discourse of owners and coaches common interactions. Here are some thoughts of mine that I think would create excitement and energy, and fall under the realm of possibility from a logistics stand-point:

November 1-November 21:

The Open splits into two 3-week sections. The first 3-weeks will be dubbed “State/Provincial/Country championships.” Individuals and teams will compete against only those inside of their immediate geographic location during this phase of the Open. The top 15 Teams, Male and Female will advance to:

December 10th/11th:

Live State/Provincial Championships. One gym (CF Affiliate) will be chosen to host the state/provincial or country championship weekend each year. It will rotate around the state, much like State Football Championships, and the workouts will be given by HQ following the end of the Open Period #1. This will run exactly like the “Festivus Games” – Where workouts, standards, etc. will be put down from the top, and carried out through the area supervisor. Affiliate owners and top coaches will be responsible for sending quality judges. Limited tickets will be given to each affiliate who sends representatives.

This will get the “grass roots” level back some excitement. This will give Regional level, 99.5th percentile athletes the ability to compete to be State Champion, rather than hang their hat on a meaningless (albeit respectable) 18th place Regional finish.

Athletes who win their prospective state championships will be given an automatic bid to Regionals. Think of how cool it will be to have a top heat that represents all of the “state champions.”

February 1-February 21:

The Second 3-week section of the Open will determine who advances onto Regionals. The first 3-weeks of Open Scores are still factored in the way that Masters Regionals scores are. Teams/individuals will have December & January to train, come together as a team or make adjustments as needed to advance. The remaining spots still available (~10/team, ~15/male/female) will be granted through traditional open qualification.